Watching the Door by Kevin Myers Drinking Up, Getting Down, and Cheating Death in 1970s Belfast

Kevin Myers was a young, wide-eyed, and naive outsider thrust into the thick of the conflict in Northern Ireland as it teetered on the brink of civil war. Quickly absorbed into the local community and privy to the secrets of both the Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries, Myers gained a unique perspective into both sides of the sectarian violence.

Devoid of any political agenda, Myers describes the streets of Belfast at its bloodiest with searing clarity, capturing every inch of the city's disturbing violence. Flirting with death at every turn, Myers comes of age as the world around him falls apart, fueled by the psychotic rage, senseless murder, and unrelenting terror that surround Northern Ireland's loyalist gangs, paratroopers, police force, and, of course, average citizen.

Part unofficial history, part personal memoir, Watching the Door is raw, provocative, and darkly funny, offering an unbridled account of sex, death, and violence in Northern Ireland by one of its most dynamic witnesses.

Kevin Myers is a writer, broadcaster, and novelist who covered the Lebanese Civil War in the 1980s and the Bosnian War in the 1990s, and is currently a columnist for the Irish Independent. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.